Duck and goose scraps,if legal, is a pretty good mink bait.

I run a lot of mink sets alongside my coyote line just to keep things interesting. Weedy ditches and grassy waterways through fields do get mink travel. Been doing this for many years. If I run boxes I use some mink gland lure and a fishy bait. But I will admit I get the whole zoo around here and few mink in my boxes.

I do have much better luck blind setting 110s in tricked of water or trails in the field waterways. I don’t get a ton of mink but enough I keep doing it and I still get pretty pumped with each catch.

How big of pocket are you digging to put the fish in? Diameter and depth ?

JT

About 3"- 4" diameter, hopefully 6" to 8" deep. I use small bluegills, roughly 5"- 6", anything bigger than that winds up in the fryer.


About 3"- 4" diameter, hopefully 6" to 8" deep. I use small bluegills, roughly 5"- 6", anything bigger than that winds up in the fryer.

Snaring is a good tool

My favorite way to catch them

I think the “bait” for a mink is a nice tunnel in the tall grass or cattails

Yep. Any inviting hole along their travel way

I used to use gland lure at sets but past 5 years or so i just use a whole wild mouse for bait that i catch in mousetraps in summer

Yup and that's why I use a 2 1/2 inch restricted entrance hole lid on my box. This hole size also restricts barn cats, but not the mink, when trapping farm areas.

If you are running pocket sets, you are much better off with bait vs lure. Just put a chunk of fish in a slot cut into the back of the pocket. Make sure the sides of the pocket are tight to the trap jaws, you don't want any gaps between the jaws and the sides of the pocket. Mink are relatively easy to catch, as long as your trap placement is correct.

Like others said, fish has caught more mink and coon in the Midwest then anything else.

Yes bait can also be the lure, for example the strong smell of fish, muskrat or beaver meat is a lure it self.

Bullheads and Super All Call here

Used to be smelt we would freeze in spring these days pretty slim pickins for smelt. I hope to go to up in spring in search of smelt, anybody know if they still run in Superior?

Always fished them through the ice in a tributary off Lake Erie. Last winter was the first time we had a run in twelve years. It was nice to catch and eat them again. And yes, I save about 100 whole smelt and a few hundred heads for mink bait this year

A few feathers seem to attract more for me, than any lure.

No Lure- just fish in the back of a pocket- but I set about half trail sets like JabNE

Mink are far easier to bait, than lure, IMO.

Fresh fish is hard to beat.
That said, fish does not have to be ultra fresh to catch a mink as many has earlier had us to believe.

For me 90% of my sets are bottom edge sets. Any attractant at a pocket is fresh bait like mice